When one considers the geography of Seoul, it’s her mountains that seem to define her: the noble peaks of Bukhan serving as a backdrop to the city’s seats of power – Gyeongbokgung and the Blue House; sacred Inwang watching over the old city’s spirit from the west; Namsan, which once marked the city’s southern limits…
‘You looking for a car?’ My girlfriend and I hadn’t walked more than twenty feet from the station when we were approached by a middle-aged man in a puffy coat. Milling about the intersection behind him were a dozen more guys of the same age, all similarly attired in padded winter jackets and hiking caps,…
I got to Sangwangsimni mid-morning on a late June day. It was hot, just starting to hint at the sweltering weather of Seoul’s worst months, but that didn’t seem to be stopping anyone from getting out to get their business done. I came out Exit 4, where the traffic lights above the road, Wangsimni-ro (왕십리로),…
Sitting on the north bank of the Han, just across from Apgujeong, the area around Oksu Station has none of the cross-water district’s glam, though it’s not without its charms. The west side of the station had relatively little that caught my eye, but it seems as though the neighborhood has undergone a fair amount…
The further east you go along the Cheonggye Stream (청계천) the more the engineering of its western end gets stripped away and the more you’re able to step into its past. The process culminates in the Cheong Gye Cheon Museum (청계천문화관) and Cheonggye Stream Shack (청계천 판잣집), close to where the stream begins its southerly…
